[tarmstrong]

I see two problems here: one, Carolyn is calling this a gender issue and not doing a good job of explaining why it is; and two, any time 'gender' is mentioned on Hacker News, twenty people defensively write comments dismissing the gender issue.

This might be more of a gender issue than we realize. CS is just plain unwelcoming, no matter who you are, but there are fewer women in CS. We are turning women away somehow, and it's probably in ways more subtle than we realize.

Any time someone complains about CS being unpleasant, we should take a hard look and wonder if it's more unpleasant to women for that reason. There's no point in trying to end or simplify the gender conversation, even if we were brought into it sloppily.

[grammaton]

> CS is just plain unwelcoming, no matter who you are

I think this is the problem we need to address first. Even after working in the industry for years, I'm still constantly struck by how contentious and irritable this industry is.

[araneae]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2193505

This research concluded that women were not in STEM careers because of this "work" culture, choosing instead other career paths with a better work/life balance,